Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

I keep this place free of outside concerns because it is part of my creedo as a Daddy to create safe space where you can be yourself and to give you the freedom to explore that identity. Today that creedo puts me in conflict with myself because it demands I take action that violates that for it’s own sake because ‘safe space’ has now become a scarce resource. The primary concern of my role, as well as my heart because that is where it resides, is with the boys who read this blog.

Yesterday.

You grew up in a world that dawned in the waning light of the one I grew up in: one of violence, oppression, darkness and hatred. There are few of us ‘american’ older gay men, far fewer than their should have been, to pass the torch on to you. That ‘gap’ has created a sense of being disconnected from the community and as a result the ‘community’ of us has become divided into small groups that seem to want to stand alone instead of together any longer. This has left SO many of you asking ‘do I belong’ in the community. The answer is:

YOU, yes you, are the entire reason we fought and died. 

We waged war to build a safe space for you. We turned the tide just enough to give you the freedom to be yourself that we never had because if we dared take it we were beaten or worse for the crime of being born. I never expected to enjoy the fruit of my labor because I wasn’t the reason for my actions, you were. Sight unseen, I worked to build a world for you that I couldn’t imagine living in. I wanted you to have a world where everything I didn’t or couldn’t have was yours without exception. I wanted YOU to have the life I wanted but knew could never come to pass when it would have mattered most for me but most of all I wanted you to never know the kind of life I, and the older generations, had to endure.

Today.

Today sees our hearts tested, our resolve taxed and our commitment to enduring challenged. Many see today’s events as a call to arms because what we fought for is being threatened. For me I see the world I fought for in danger of being gutted and left for dead in an alley way and I cannot abide that. I stopped believing what I read, stopped listening to the ‘news’ a long time ago because of half truth or myopic factionalization efforts.

I watched as things changed on a dime. Read reports that the information about LGBT was stripped from the whitehouse.gov site and because I don’t blindly believe what I read, I checked it out myself. I wasn’t shocked, just disheartened to discover:

This is all that comes up now. Erasure. It’s not the only part of it to be ‘cleaned up’ but it’s the one that hit me first. In a way it is like watching someone plaster over the Vietnam memorial, erasing names from view, because those statements about us reflect the names of people who fought and many who died for the sake of equality. I knew many of them personally and this, more than anything, made me realize that there was something that I needed to say to you all right now even if it might seem to ‘violate’ my policy about ‘safe space’ here. This is more important which is why you are seeing it now.

Tomorrow.

I want you to carry this message with you, truly feel it and lock it deep within you, in the coming days. I don’t want this to get lost in the confusion or the sadness or get forgotten in the deluge of chaos that threatens to rise. I want this to be something you hold close and keep ever in your thoughts.
You. Are. Loved. You Belong. YOU are what we fought for, you are what we died to protect, and I want you to know this one thing:

You were worth it.

You may mock this, deny it’s truth, or deflect the implications of it but you cannot change the truth of it. I cannot tell you how proud I have been to see YOU grow, to watch you rise and to be in a way I could never have imagined being myself in my own childhood. Every one of you who braves the world and says “This is who I am and I am different” is a joy to me, a true beauty, and I don’t want you to EVER doubt this message I am sharing with you now.
There may come a time when you doubt, cannot feel or see, the value you have in this world but I want..no. I need you to know that you were worth our struggle. Not the world, not the country, not even your home town: YOU were worth it. You are loved by more than you’ll ever know and to a measure we hope you never have to understand because we don’t want you to endure what we did.

Yesterday belonged to me. Today we share but Tomorrow belongs to you. 

I will not see all your tomorrows. It is simply how life works right now and I accept that but what I cannot accept, cannot endure thinking about, is that you feel disconnected, alone or unloved in the days to come. This cannot be allowed. You need to know these things with certainty or it was all in vain.
YANA. You.Are.Not.Alone.
ILY. I. Love. You.
These were short hand messages written to someone very precious to me before he left my world. I am rubbish at texting but YANA ILY became my way of saying “ I will always be with you’ and so I pass that message on to you now.
YANA ILY. You will never be alone, no matter what you are made to think or feel about yourself. We are with you, always.

If you feel the world has no hope of happiness left, no chance for you at all, please remember my message to you today. Don’t give up and don’t be afraid to reach out for help. It may not be easy, but if you too remember that your story belongs to the one you have yet to tell it to and may someday save their life, then you may find the strength to make it just one more day.
That’s all I ask of you, give ME today and save such for tomorrow. If you feel like you can’t anymore, let me have today. Take today to reach out for help or to offer it to someone who needs it. We will have to be here for each other more than ever, and it must begin with the two of us.
If you need an ear: call these numbers. Keep trying if something is busy. Give me today and do this for me. Don’t forget you are loved, wanted and needed in this world no matter what you believe of yourself. You were worthy of the sacrifice of our struggle and made it all worthwhile so please, if for no reason other than some stranger on the internet asks it of you, don’t give up today.
There will come a tomorrow when I am not there, but on that day it is you who will be sharing that ‘today’ with someone who needs your story. Be there for them, as I was here for you now, and we will endure this together.

YANA ILY.